At Dia:Beacon in New York, Andy Warhol's Shadows (1978-79) is about 60 paintings, each about 3 feet by 4 feet, lining the perimeter of a large room. Each individual painting has the same basic structure, featuring a tall thin black shadow on a colored background, or a colored shadow on a black background.
Warhol, who was born in Pittsburg in 1928 to Czechoslovakian parents, drew on ideas from his previous works and the works of contemporary artists for Shadows. He created two series afterwards, Reversals and Retrospectives, that looked back on his previous works. Shadows likewise looked back on Warhol's past. The shadows can be seen as the shapeless forms of his previous works against the colorful environments that inspired him. He was also influenced by other artists' ideas. Blinky Palermo, Donald Judd, and Carl Andre made large-scale repetitive or serial works around the same time period. Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, in the 1920s, experimented with making shadows and reflections the subject of their works.
For me, the vastness of the project contrasts with the emptiness of the room. I feel I should be the only one standing there, and these are all the different shadows I leave behind when I proceed to the next room. Or else I have only left one of these colored shadows. I have walked into an environment colored by the diverse shadows of all who have passed through before me.
